Anime Leader to Stream Episodes within One Hour of Japanese Television Debut

Flower Mound, TX – April 15, 2010 -- FUNimation® Entertainment is partnering with the leading and largest Japanese broadcast television network, Fuji Television Network, Inc., to simulcast anime series featured in its late-night noitaminA programming block airing in Japan on Thursday nights. The partnership gives the American anime leader rights to the online streaming and simulcast of the series in noitaminA in the U.S.

“We are excited to bring this programming to the North American audience,” said Koji Yamamoto, producer of the noitaminA block at Fuji Television, “and to bring it with FUNimation Entertainment, with which we enjoy a long and cooperative relationship.”

“This is a fantastic opportunity to work again with the formidable Fuji TV,” said Gen Fukunaga, president and CEO at FUNimation Entertainment, “particularly on the debut of a new noitaminA lineup. This highly-rated block has already launched hits like ‘Eden of the East’ and ‘Tokyo Magnitude 8.0’ and we hope to extend that success for these new series in the U.S.”

“House of the Five Leaves” will premiere on Fuji TV on early Friday morning, April 16 at 1:30 a.m. Japanese Standard Time (JST) and at 12:30 p.m. CDT Thursday, April 15, just one hour after its Japanese debut, FUNimation will deliver the first episode of the series for North American streaming via www.funimation.com.

On Thursday, April 22 at 11:45 a.m. CDT, FUNimation will stream the first episode of “The Tatami Galaxy” one hour after its Japanese premiere.

Each episode will be high-quality and contain its original Japanese dialogue accompanied by English subtitles. A new episode will be rolled out weekly at www.funimation.com as well as key video-sharing partners as both series continue their television run.

“House of the Five Leaves” is a 12 episode series produced by Manglobe and directed by Tomomi Mochizuki (OCEAN WAVES, “Ranma ˝”) and adapted from the Natsume Ono samurai manga of the same name. Set in the Edo period, the series centers on a masterless samurai, Masa, and a gang of mysterious outlaws called “Five Leaves.”

The North American anime distributor Viz Media has confirmed with ANN that it will be streaming the Cross Game baseball anime on its VizAnime.com website later this month. Viz had revealed its plans via an ad at the bottom of the Shojo Beat email newsletter that announced the streams of another anime, Vampire Knight, on Friday. Viz will announce more details about the streaming of Cross Game later this week...

I've been watching One Piece from the official site. Good series but the site is horrible in the way they set it up. Finding the episode is easy enough but it is a pain having to to find the next episode to watch because you need to sort the episode from the random default setting each time you want watch something. There is no way to just play the next episode in the series when you are done with the current episode you are watching like you can on hulu.

Flower Mound, Texas (May 28, 2010) -- FUNimation® Entertainment and Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV) have entered into an agreement giving the American anime leader exclusive rights to the U.S. online simulcast of the network’s newest animated series “Rainbow”.

The collaboration will allow the simulcast and streaming of already aired episodes of the 26-episode dramatic series, known as “RAINBOW - Nisha Rokubo no Shichinin” in Japan, as it continues its run on NTV weekly at 12:59 a.m.

Starting Tuesday, June 1 at 12:00 p.m. CDT, FUNimation will deliver episode nine just one hour after its broadcast in Japan via www.funimation.com. In addition, the first eight episodes which have already aired will be available for streaming. All episodes feature the original Japanese dialogue accompanied by English subtitles.

“We are proud to partner with NTV on this new title as we expect to significantly grow our simulcast business” said Gen Fukunaga, CEO of FUNimation Entertainment “it is a natural extension of our already strong partnership on anime series and live-action films.”

NTV is one of the top broadcast networks in Japan. This series by Tokyo-based Madhouse Studios is based on the manga published by Shogakukan of the same name written by George Abe and illustrated by Masasumi Kakizaki. Both depict the lives of seven juvenile delinquents at a reform school in 1955.

NEW ACTION HORROR SERIES—HIGHSCHOOL OF THE DEAD—TO BEGIN SIMULCASTING THIS JULY ON ANIME NETWORK ONLINE

HOUSTON, TX — 7-02-2010 — Highschool of the Dead, the highly anticipated new series from Madhouse (Deathnote, Macross Frontier), will begin simulcasting this July exclusively on Anime Network Online.

WHAT: Worldwide Premiere of Highschool of the Dead on Anime Network Online
From Director Tetsuro Araki (Deathnote, Black Lagoon), and adapted from the highly successful manga of the same name by Daisuke Sato, comes one of the hottest new shows of the Summer, Highschool of the Dead. A deadly new disease is ravaging the world, turning the populace into mindless zombies, and the number of infected is skyrocketing by the second. As their fellow classmates and teachers succumb to the infection around them, a small group of students at Fujimi High School are fighting for their lives after surviving the initial outbreak. It is up to Takashi Komuro to unite the group of weary survivors and try to escape the horrors that surround them. In this new world of the living dead...will they escape?

WHEN: Episode 1 will be available Monday, July 5th at 12:00 AM CDT (late Sunday night), episodes 2 and on will be available every Sunday at 10:00 PM CDT.
Check www.theanimenetwork.com for North American Listings.

WHERE: Anime Network Official website's Online Player.

HOW: Episode 1 of Highschool of the Dead will be available to registered users. Registration is absolutely free and takes very little time.

http://www.veoh.com has tons of videos that can also be downloaded. You have to install their player to download but there's no spyware or anything. Just do a custom install so you don't get the Microsoft Bing toolbar. Videos wouldn't play on my old version of WMP I have at work but it was fine in VLC.

The anime distributor FUNimation Entertainment and the Japanese studio Toei Animation have announced that they agreed to have Funimation stream the Dragon Ball Z anime series in North America starting on Saturday, January 15 at 8:30 p.m. ET. Each uncut episode, with the option of English dubbing or English subtitles, will precede the One Piece simulcast at 9:00 p.m. ET. The websites www.dragonballz.com, www.dragonballzkai.com , www.funimation.com and www.hulu.com will host the streams.